Who Are The Top Sugar Subsidy Recipients?

Lynne Kiesling

In the comments to my earlier post about sugar industry rent seeking, Dan asks who are the top recipients of these sugar subsidies.

I did a search on Hoover’s for U.S. companies listing SIC 2061 (cane sugar growing) and 2062 (cane sugar refining and processing) as their primary SIC codes. I excluded beet sugar just to make my estimate of the extent of the subsidy problem more conservative.

This search yielded 112 companies. I ranked them by annual sales revenue. Here are the top 10:

  • Contran Corporation
  • Imperial Sugar
  • American Sugar Holdings
  • Florida Crystals
  • C&H Sugar
  • U.S. Sugar Corporation
  • M. A. Patout & Son
  • Rio Grande Valley Sugar Growers
  • Okeelanta Corporation
  • Cora Texas Manufacturing Company

Note that this list does not indicate any particular benefits that any individual company would enjoy if this sugar subsidy in the farm bill passes; nor does this list indicate political contributions or other forms of rent-seeking activity that these firms or their trade associations have undertaken. But if you want to look for parties who will benefit from this legislation, here’s a place to start.

6 thoughts on “Who Are The Top Sugar Subsidy Recipients?”

  1. But Lynne, the real question is “when are you going to blog about that awesome conference this past weekend?” 😉

  2. But Lynne, the real question is “when are you going to blog about that awesome conference this past weekend?” 😉

  3. But aren’t those companies just “pass-through” fronts for the politicians who use the implicit tax of import restrictions to cage for political contributions?

  4. But aren’t those companies just “pass-through” fronts for the politicians who use the implicit tax of import restrictions to cage for political contributions?

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